When it comes to influence, the language you speak matters

The number of famous people a country produces has less to do with its wealth or the size of its population and more to do with its language , according to a recent study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It's likely not surprising that English is the most globally influential language, but when MIT researchers mapped how information flows around the world, it became evident that some of the most widely spoken languages aren't as influential as other lesser-spoken ones. For example, with nearly 2 billion speakers, Mandarin is the most spoken language in the world, but if you're a native English speaker looking to spread your message, you're better off learning Spanish. Why? It boils down to how information written in English is shared in other languages. As the graphic on the right illustrates, most tweets are translated into or from English even though the Chi...